Points programmes have quietly replaced the old airdrop. Instead of a surprise snapshot, projects now hand out points for deposits, trades, referrals and quests, then convert those points into tokens at launch. The problem is that nobody tells you what a point is worth until it is too late to change your behaviour. A million points sounds impressive until you learn the total supply is a trillion and your share is worth twelve dollars.

The first thing to check is the conversion math. Look for three numbers in the project's documentation: the total points expected to be issued, the percentage of token supply allocated to points holders, and the token's likely fully diluted valuation. If a project allocates 5% of a token with a plausible 200 million dollar valuation to points, the points pool is worth about 10 million dollars. Divide that by the total points issued and you have a rough value per point. Without at least two of these three numbers, you are guessing.

Dilution is the silent killer of points value. Many programmes have no cap on points issuance, so early farmers watch their share shrink as the programme goes viral and millions of new points flood in. Season resets and point decay, which some programmes now use, make this worse for late joiners and better for consistent early participants. A programme that rewards the same action every day for a year is not the same as one that rewards it once: the first dilutes, the second does not.

Not all points are created equal, even within one programme. Some actions earn points that convert one-to-one, while others earn boosted or multiplied points, and some points are purely cosmetic leaderboard scores with no conversion at all. Read the documentation carefully: if the project says points are not a promise of tokens, believe it. The strongest signal is a published conversion ratio or a past season that actually paid out, because a programme that has already converted points to tokens once has shown it will do it again.

Time cost is the other half of the valuation. Points farming is often presented as free money, but an hour a day across five programmes is a part-time job. Price your time honestly: if a programme's expected payout is fifty dollars after three months of daily tasks, that is a poor return on the hours involved. The best programmes are the ones where the activity is something you would do anyway, such as using a protocol you already use, so the points are a bonus rather than the reason.

A practical routine: before joining a points programme, write down the allocation percentage, the expected total points, and your estimated share. Revisit the estimate monthly as new data appears. Drop programmes where the math stops working, and double down on the ones where your share is growing because others are leaving. Points farming rewards the farmer who does the arithmetic, not the one who collects the most programmes.

Referral points deserve their own calculation, because they are the most diluted points of all. A programme that pays 10% of a referral's points sounds generous, but if the referral earns few points, your share is small, and programmes that pay referrals in the same points pool dilute every other farmer. Social tasks are similar: a points reward for following an account or reposting an announcement costs the project nothing to issue, so these points are usually the most inflated. Weight your time toward on-chain actions, deposits, trades and liquidity, because those are the actions the project actually values, and the points attached to them usually convert at a better rate than the points attached to a retweet.